Need Help setting up a new system

I love David Allen and he was the first person who explained a system of getting organized that I understood and that worked for me. Unfortunately life got in the way and I lost my way.

Back then I used a Palm Pilot, had my work calendar (Outlook) and a home calendar on a Palm Desktop. I do have Outlook at home, but I could never come up with a way to make everything sync together so I wouldn't have to enter things twice.

Now I have an I-phone. Still using Outlook at work, but it's a really strict network that I don't know that I can sync together with my i-phone. I'm using google calendar as a home calendar to sync to my I-phone. I've abandoned the home Outlook, when I could finally get it to sync to something (I think it was my old Blackberry), it would duplicate things and really wasn't a good system.

I used to use Splash ID for Palm, and I'm thinking about using it for Iphone to keep all passwords, ID #'s etc. organized. Anyone know of something more useful or better?

I need a good list creator for my iphone. I used to have lists in the Palm, but I don't have anything in Iphone yet.

Anyone have any good recommendations on a system that would link my calendars?

I don't have a good technology suggestion for you at the start, but if you want to really get the GTD habits your system cannot be a hindrance. You must focus on the habits, not on your system. If you put your focus on your system, you will fail.

For that reason I suggest you start with a paper solution while you experiment with high-tech solutions (oh, you have a project: R&D electronic GTD system).

On a side note, it's funny and sad how technology advances have made so many electronic GTD systems complicated to the point that going back to paper has been the best choice for many. You might find that paper is your best choice after you "play" with different electronic solutions.

You might try exporting part of your Outlook calendar to a CSV file and mailing it to your personal e-mail address. Google Calendar can probably import it without much trouble. It's not really a synchronization, just a faster, more automated way of getting that data into your personal system.

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Anyone have any good recommendations on a system that would link my calendars?

Hi Melanie,

The iPhone works very well with Exchange Server, so if that's what your company is running then you should be able to set it up fairly simply. It works beautifully, with all folders accessible, emails read/unread status gets updated, and sent mail from the iPhone is stored in your Outlook sent folder.

As for home, I also use Outlook and I subscribed to Apple's MobileMe. This gives me my personal calendar which syncs over the air to the iPhone. My company's Exchange/Outlook work calendar syncs too and I can view each calendar separately or overlayed.

As for GTD, I use Appigo Todo on the iPhone and Toodledo online, which again syncs over the air.

With this setup, I can access my calendar and todo system either on my iPhone or the desktop at work and at home, and they all keep in sync automatically.